Magqubu, who was 75 years old, began to tell us stories. What a wonderful storyteller he was. He told us how he grew up in the Ongeni area, learning from his father and the old men in his krall (home), the meanings of Hlonipho, which implies respect for all things, including people, tradition, plants, animals, and ancestral spirits, and Ubuntu (compassion). Magqubu said that the spirits of the old people who lived in the Umfolozi are guarded by the snakes in the isolated ravines, and that the spirits were there to protect us and look after the wild country.

He went on to tell us about the Zulu months of the year, a poetic description of the seasons. He said that April was Mbasa, which is the time to make fires and move inside the huts. July is Ntulikazana, when the winds first come and blow the leaves off the trees. August is Nhloyiwe, when the yellow-billed kite comes down from the north; the name of the month is derived from the onomatopoeic sound of the birds calling. September is Ulwezi, which means that when you look across the landscape, it is like looking through a spider web because of the first fires that have begun in the land.October is uZibandlela, when the grass starts to grow over the paths; and December is kNkonkoni, when the wildebeest begin to calve.

That night, as I sat alone at the fire on watch to keep the lions away, I thought how wrong it was that a man with such insights and knowledge as Magqubu was not more widely known. He could not read or write, but he was a brilliant naturalist and orator. So, it was that night, sitting around the fire underneath the Southern Cross, that the idea of a world wilderness congress was born. Strangely, and yet maybe not, the next morning, Magqubu said to me: "You know, it is time that we have a big Indaba (gathering) of all the people that we have brought out here, so that we can join them together from all over the world and begin to help and educate more people to save wild country." This confirmed my feeling of the previous evening and I decided that the moment I got back into town I would begin to create a World Wilderness Congress (WWC).
The effort to organize took two years, and in October 1977, in the midst of some of the worst apartheid years in southern Africa, and during the infamous Sowetoriots, the congress took place. This was a miracle. There were some 40 international speakers in attendance, including artists, poets, hunters, musicians, and writers. For me, one of the most important aspects of the congress was seeing Magqubu and other indigenous people, who had dedicated their entire lives to nature conservation, on the same platform as leading politicians and environmental and cabinet ministers.

The 1st WWC renewed strength in the international movement to understand and protect wilderness. The 2nd WWC was held in Cairns, Australia, in 1980; in 1983, the 3rd WWC was held in the Scottish Highlands at Inverness and Findhorn; in 1987, the 4th WWC was held in the United States; in 1993, the 5th WWC convened in the Arctic, in northern Norway. The 6th WWC is planned for India in 1997. Each congress brings together those of us who know the values of wilderness and who especially understand the power of wilderness experiences to transform human lives to help solve the world's current spiritual and ecological plight.

Those who are committed to the wilderness must confront barbaric people and ideas. I use the word 'barbaric" carefully, but purposefully, because there are insensitive developers and mining companies, and incompetent governments, that have no feelings for anything wild and seem to think that they have the God-given right to do anything they wish to the world. Yet, ironically, without wilderness and wildlife, many people could not maintain their sanity.

In 1955, when I was a young game ranger in Zululand, stationed in the Umfolozi Game Reserve, I spent many days walking down the White and Black Umfolozi rivers talking with the old Zulu game guards about the history of the wonderful landscape. It was at this time too, thanks to my friend, Jim Feely, who was a great admirer and reader of American wildlife literature, that I was able to read about the ten fundamental principles of the wilderness concept in a book on wildlife management by a man called Tripensee. It was without question one of the most remarkable reading experiences that I have ever had. For the previous three years, I had been working in the wild country of Zululand and now

suddenly reading these ten fundamental principles became for me a fusion of Logos and Eros. The words described what I had experienced during my foot, canoe, and horse patrols in Zululand and other wild country that I had explored.

Since then, there has been an explosion of wilderness literature. Authors Paul Shepard, Theodore Roszak, Max Oeschlager, Rod Nash, John Hendee, and many others have given the world the opportunity to read about the importance of wilderness to humankind. We have now reached the point in human history where we have no excuse not to defend wilderness and wildlife. It is imperative that we save the wilderness because our own survival depends upon it.

Major disasters are evident all around us. I recently watched a television documentary about amphibians and how they are disappearing from the world. I instantly knew that this was true. In my own homeland in the Karkloof Valley of Natal, over the last 25 years there has been a steady reduction in the number of toads and frogs. When my family first moved into the valley, after the early rains we could hardly sleep because of the noise of the frogs. We don't hear them much anymore. What does this and other stories of ecological disintegration tell us? Which shadow announces the death of the afternoon? We need to listen to what the animals and the birds are telling us because they are the indicators of what might happen to us.

DR. Ian Player is founder of the Wilderness Leadership School (South Africa), The WILD Foundation (USA), the World Wilderness Congress, and remains an active leader in the South African wilderness protection movement. Further information can be obtained from the International Center for Earth Concerns, 2162 Baldwin Road, Ojai, CA 93023, USA. This paper draws on Dr. Player's presentation at the 5th WWC (Norway, 1993) and can be found in Arctic Wilderness: Proceedings of the 5th World Wilderness Congress, 1995. V. Martin and N. Tyler, eds. Golden, Colo.: North American Press.